An unstable or flickering Wi-Fi connection is really a pity. That’s dangerous if you can’t afford to disconnect from the internet, even a little. If you find yourself in such situations often, you should get a secondary internet connection as a backup. However, switching to a secondary connection every time you experience downtime will end up consuming too much time and ultimately not achieving the purpose.
Therefore, if you own an Asus Router (like the Asus RT-AC68U) that is capable of handling multiple WAN connections (aka Dual-WAN routers), it’s best to configure the load balance.
The advantages of load balancing on a router are many. First, the load is evenly distributed, thus making it easy to optimally route Internet traffic across connected devices. Second, even if one connection fails, load balancing prevents a complete shutdown by rerouting traffic. Attractive?
Well, let’s go down to see how to configure a load balancer on an Asus router.
You can set up the secondary connection as an Ethernet connection, or even use a USB tethering device such as a phone or 4G modem.
If it’s the old port (which we’ll see below), you’ll have to use one of the LAN ports for the secondary connection.
How to configure two Ethernet wired connections as load balancers
Connect the primary Ethernet cable to the WAN port and the secondary Ethernet cable to one of the LAN ports first, and make sure to note down the port number.
Step 1: Log in to the router interface with your admin username and password. Once done, selecting WAN from the left menu will open the WAN home page.
Now click on the tab marked Dual WAN.
Step 2: Next, turn on the switch labeled Enable Dual WAN. Now you will be given options to choose primary and secondary WAN.
Note:
Step 3: To set your primary connection, click the primary WAN drop-down menu and select WAN.
Step 4: To set your secondary connection, click the secondary WAN drop-down menu and select Ethernet LAN. Now, you will be given the option to select the LAN port. All you have to do is select the port (where the cable is connected) from the list.
Step 5: Once you’ve done that, select Load Balancer from the drop-down menu and specify the Balancer configuration.
You should specify a load ratio that corresponds to the bandwidth of both channels. Please note that load balancing does not work by distributing packages. Instead, it works by spreading connection efforts between WAN1 and WAN2.
So if you have both connections at the same speed, a 1:1 configuration will allow for a 50-50 balance. That works best if both your connections have the same speed. Otherwise, you can set the ratio 3:1.
In this case, if you have to download five files, the first and last three files will go through the primary WAN while the fourth will use the secondary WAN.
Once you’ve configured the load balancer rate, hit the Apply button and that’s it. Congratulations! You have configured a load balancer on your Asus router.
Configure secondary Internet connection
Before you start, you need to configure your secondary connection. If you are unsure about the type of Internet connection (PPIP or PPPoE), please contact your ISP and they will be able to help you with that.
But if you do know, go to WAN on the left menu, select Internet connection and then configure the settings.
When to use Fail Over
Load balancing works best if you want to distribute the load evenly across WAN1 and WAN2. But if you frequently face downtime on one of the connections, load balancing won’t make much sense as there will be significant latency in routing traffic through the active port. And that’s when Fail Over comes in.
If you face frequent downtime, load balancing won’t make much sense
Fail Over always uses the primary connection and only switches to the secondary connection when the primary connection fails. Ideally, you can route a faster connection to WAN1, while keeping a limited connection as a backup.
If you happen to select the Fail Over mode, you must specify the time interval and fail over detection time. Here, the router will automatically detect the network status by sending periodic DNS queries at the time you specified.
Extra tip: Use your phone as a USB tethering device
As mentioned above, you can also set your Android phone (or 4G modem) as a secondary connection. To do so, follow the steps below,
Step 1: Select USB Applications from the left panel and select the 3G/4G option from the USB Applications list.
Step 2: Now, Select WAN from the drop-down menu and enable the Enable USB Mode button.
Step 3: Now, select your Android phone from the drop-down menu. Also, connect your phone to the router with a USB cable.
Once done, go to your phone settings, search for USB tethering and enable it.
On Samsung phones, you’ll find it in Settings > Connections > Mobile and USB Tethering. Once done, press the Apply button. Simple, see.
Get the most out of your router
Undoubtedly, the range of the router increases many times when Dual-WAN mode is used.
In our case, thankfully, it worked great. In the past, the inefficient independent connection method resulted in uneven load distribution. Although I used to get around 850Mbps overall on the primary connection, my co-workers usually get around 100Mbps on the secondary connection.
With this setting, our speeds hovered around the 600Mbps mark. Neat, right?
Next up: Did you know that you can set up your Asus router for uninterrupted gaming and Netflix streaming? Read the article below to find out how.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
